Page 41

My bare feet sank into the grass as I hopped from the stairs to the garden. What was I doing? I didn’t know. I stomped on that voice inside of me and the soulbond kicked it from my mind.

I had made my choice.

I couldn’t take it back.

I twisted, expecting to see Jules a step behind me. But he remained at the top of the stairs, luminous black eyes fixed on me. His entire body was tensed and coiled, a predator about to pounce. My heart stuttered.

Every instinct yelled at me to run, now .

That was a terrible idea.

I did it anyway.

I dashed across the grass, aiming for a row of tall hedges carved into an arched pathway. A stone bench piled with pillows blurred in my periphery as I sprinted past it. If I made it through the greenery, we’d be out of sight from the windows—

Jules appeared before the hedges in the blink of an eye. “I tried, I really did. But I don’t have the patience for a hunt today. I need you.”

I stumbled back. Oh, shit. I whipped my head around, but there was only open space at my back, a long stretch of lawn. Nowhere to run. Estrella, Tristan, and any thrall in the apartment would be able to see us.

Jules prowled toward me.

Fuck.

He crossed the space between us faster than I could process. He plucked one of the maroon pillows from the stone bench, not breaking his stride or his gaze with the movement. I twisted, knowing there was nowhere to go but needing to desperately get—

Jules pounced.

He crashed into me, arms locking around my waist as his weight sent us both tumbling. I screamed as we went down—

He slammed one hand out, catching us a mere inch off the ground. The other still gripped my waist. His breath huffed against my ear, in time with mine, in time with the wild pounding of our hearts.

For a moment, we just breathed together.

Then his teeth grazed my ear. “You never answered my question. Can I fuck you, wife?”

Stars forgive me.

I had sinned.

I would sin again.

I wanted to sin right now.

I wanted him to make me feel alive.

“Yes.”

He released me. I dropped to the ground. My breasts pressed into the soft grass, shielded only by that thin layer of lace.

Above me, the shade flickered as Jules pushed onto his knees between my legs. His hands found my skirts, gathering the flowing fabric in a rough fist. He shoved the layers up over my hips, baring me to the open air.

I barely had time to gasp before the garden breeze kissed my naked ass.

“Hips up.”

The command cut through my daze, instinct overriding thought. I pressed my knees into the grass automatically, lifting my hips. Jules jammed a pillow beneath me.

To keep my ass propped up for him.

More heat flushed through my face.

Then his palm cracked against one cheek.

I yelped, jerking forward at the sharp smack. The soothing rune dulled the pain, but I still felt every bit of the impact.

A low chuckle sounded behind me. I glanced back just in time to see Jules’s smile widen, his shadowed eyes dark with something hotter than mischief. “Luc isn’t the only one who likes this pretty, plump ass of ours.”

His other hand came down, gripping the opposite cheek, kneading. Possessive. Pleased. My breath hitched.

With an approving hum, Jules shifted behind me, bracketing my legs with his own. A bit of pressure and he had my thighs pressed together, trapping me beneath him.

The clink of a buckle.

My heart jumped. My fingers dug into the dirt.

I had said yes, a moment of temporary insanity that I still floated in, but it didn’t stop the spike of fear. “We’re in the middle of a lawn. Anyone in the apartment could see us.”

“It’s our lawn. Our apartment. Our castle.”

“Jules—”

A shadow fell over me.

Jules leaned forward, caging me beneath him. His hands found my wrists, pinning them down. His body—solid, powerful, all-encompassing—settled over mine. I was completely at his mercy. The heat of his cock burned against the curve of my ass.

His breath brushed the back of my head. “Our council, guards, and thralls have seen your beautiful, naked body already, Nessa.”

I didn’t have an argument for that. He was right.

And then he raised one hand from my wrists, snaked it between our bodies, and slid a finger deep into me. My thoughts fled. A cry tore from my lips.

“Stars, you’re so fucking wet for me.” He drew his finger out. “I don’t even need to warm you up.”

“Jules—”

The King of Dawn nocked his cock at my entrance and thrust.

“Oh, stars—” The words spilled from me as his length split me open.

As he filled me.

Filled me.

Filled me.

Fuck. I was going to burst. He was going to kill me. I would smile as I died. I had known that the minute I volunteered for the harvest. But I’d imagined dying from fangs, not a cock.

He hissed at the grip of my body, the pressure of his legs pining mine together and keeping me tight. When the head of his cock bumped against my ending, his fingers flexed around my wrists, a deep, wrecked groan escaping into my ear. "Fuck, I love your cunt."

A helpless whimper slid from my throat. The only sound I was capable of making. My entire body trembled, nerves sparking like wildfire.

Fuck. Was he always this massive?

I couldn’t believe he fit inside me. How had I taken him and Luc back to back two days ago? I dug my fingers into the dirt, grasping for something to tether me as he let my body adjust to him.

Jules nuzzled into the back of my head. “Do you have trouble believing that, bride? That I love your cunt?”

“Yes.” I managed to stutter out. There wasn’t room in my mind for arguments, not with his cock impaling me like this.

“Just like you have trouble believing I’d want to paint your heaving, naked body as you whimper under me?” he asked, a smile in his voice.

A short, choked laugh escaped me. It cut off quickly into a groan. I hadn’t meant to laugh, but it was such a ridiculous thing to say. What a sight we must have made. The brilliant godstar of ivory and gold buried deep in a pink puddle of a woman.

Divinity fucking mortality.

Jules slid out, then pulsed his hips. Our flesh slapping together. Stars .

“Answer the question, Nessa.”

“Yes!” I shouted.

Sparks exploded behind my eyelids as he filled me again.

And again.

“Ohhh.”

And again.

“Jules!”

His patience had reached his limit. With each thrust, his hips rocked mine into the pillow. Each time he bottomed out, he pressed me deep into the plush fabric.

I jolted with each touch.

My cries became an unending mewl.

Stars, I couldn’t survive this.

I tried to squirm away, to escape the rising pleasure. His fist tightened around my wrists, his legs a cage to mine.

“Why?” he asked, voice hoarse.

Why? Oh. Yes. Why didn’t I believe him? I fought the wave to form an answer. “Because I’m not... ah... I’m just…”

“Just…” He thrust. “...what?”

“Just Nessa!”

Suddenly, I was on my back. Jules’s arms caged me in, his weight pressing me into the earth, our chests brushing through the thin layer of rumpled lace.

Those shadowed eyes captured mine. “What does that mean?”

I was dizzy from the sudden shift, dizzy from the wave of bliss clawing inside me, demanding him back. I glanced down between us. His thick, throbbing length lay heavy against my belly, soaked with my lust. His cock looked just as frustrated as I felt. “What?”

“Just Nessa.”

I flushed. “It’s... I’m…” I waved my hand around, gesturing vaguely at my entire form. “I’m just me. I’m... boring. Average in every way. Ordinary.”

His eyes narrowed. “Who told you that?”

Everyone I had ever met. Even if they didn’t say it like my stepmother, I had seen it. Had watched too many eyes glaze over, suffered too many interruptions while I tattered on about books and facts. “Does it matter?”

“It does.”

“Can you…” I shifted beneath him, aching for friction, but his knees still trapped me. I snaked my hand down my body, over the lace. I needed something. Anything.

Jules caught my wrist in a lightning-fast grip. A second later, both my arms were pinned above my head again. Damn vampire.

“Can’t we…” I couldn’t believe I was saying this. “Can’t we just fuck? Why do we need to talk?”

His smile was slow. “You said I don’t know enough about you. I’m simply trying to rectify that.”

Fucker. “Why do you care?”

Jules cocked his head. “Why don’t you want to answer?”

I sighed and tried to squirm out from underneath him. His grip on me tightened, trapping me in place.

“Answer the question, bride.”

“My stepmother,” I blurted out. “She and my sister are beautiful, like little dolls with vibrant red hair, the greenest eyes and tiny, lithe bodies. I’m…”

Muddy brown hair.

Muddy brown eyes.

Plain features and a lumbering frame.

Large breasts and a soft stomach and thick thighs.

I swallowed. “I’m just Nessa.”

Jules stared. “I think I’m going to kill your family.”

My eyes widened. “What?”

“You heard me.”

I pushed uselessly against his hold, wrists twisting beneath his grasp. “You can’t kill my family.”

Jules snorted. “I can quite easily kill your family.” He said it like it was the simplest thing in the world. Like ordering wine or summoning a tailor. “I don’t even need to do it myself. I’ll have a message sent to Corraidin’s magistrates. They’ll gladly kill anyone I request.” He pursed his lips, as if considering it. “Though it’d be far more enjoyable if I did it myself.”

My heartbeat stuttered. If Jules wanted to kill my family, I couldn’t stop him. I didn’t care about my stepmother or father’s well-being any more than they had cared for mine, but Aislin didn’t deserve to die. Neither did Orrin, Saraid, Finola, or Urrick. They were children . “Please don’t kill my family.”

“Why?” he asked, like he genuinely didn’t understand. “They don’t deserve to breathe.”

“For saying I’m just Nessa?”

“For making you hate yourself.”

I flinched at the blunt words. “I don’t hate myself.”

Jules raised his brows. “Don’t you? You can’t lie to me.”

My eyes burned. I hated him sometimes. At least, I tried. I blinked hard, shoving back the tears threatening to spill over, but that didn’t stop my core from pulsing, desperate for relief. “Let go of me.”

“No.” Jules shoved his knees between mine, his free arm hooking under my thigh. He spread me wide with easy, practiced strength. He rolled his hips. I yelped as his cock slid over my clit. “You’re not running away from this.”

“Jules,” I moaned.

“You aren’t just Nessa anymore. You’re my Nessa.” He slid the head of his cock through my slick heat, slow, teasing. “My soulbound.” Then, without warning, he thrust inside me. A single, deep stroke. “My wife .”

A low moan escaped my throat. Finally. Back where he belonged. My ankles locked around his thighs, like I could hold him inside me forever. My cunt clenched around him. Jules groaned, dropping his head into the crook of my neck, his breath hot against my skin.

“You entranced me the second you first met my eyes, you brave, wild thing. How could there ever be anything ordinary about you?” He pressed a soft kiss to my chest, right above the neckline of the lace. Right where Luc had carved the covenant runespell. “I will thank the godstars every day for blessing me with an eternity in your soft body. And one day, in your heart.”

My mouth popped open. A shudder rolled through me. How could he say things like that? How could he sound so utterly certain? I knew love between soulbound heartmates was as inevitable as sex between vampire and thrall. I had nearly accepted one, but the other…

How could I fall in love with the Butcher? The Conqueror?

Had it already started?

Jules smirked, as if he read the question on my face. He nipped my bottom lip. “Lock your ankles behind my back, lovely. Let’s take you for a ride.”

I obeyed. Without a second’s hesitation.

Jules didn’t give me another moment to prepare.

He thrust into me like he had never stopped. His rhythm picked up effortlessly, like his body had been waiting for this moment, aching for it. I clung to him, and he took me apart.

Oh, stars. He was everything, everywhere, all at once. My world was his swirling black eyes. His soft, pale skin. The strands of his white-gold hair grazing my cheek. The raw, breathtaking pleasure he wove through me. His nose brushed mine, our breaths mingling.

But he didn’t close that last inch between our lips.

He wanted to watch every flicker across my face.

I knew because I wanted to watch his.

A pretty flush stained Jules’s cheeks. His lips were parted, his eyes lidded. His brow furrowed as he released a low groan. He had never been more beautiful. Cresting on a wave of bliss, utterly lost to it. If I focused, I could nearly feel that building heat coiling in his gut, mirroring my own.

“I was—ah... wrong.”

My fingers dug into the muscles of his back, holding on for life. I didn’t even process what he said. Couldn’t . “What?”

Jules pumped into me… then stopped. I whimpered. He lowered his face until he brushed my lips. Gold-lined black irises burned into me, trapping me in their gravity. I sunk into the heat of her, her cunt around my cock, her soft skin beneath my chest, but that gaze of hers ensnared me. I didn’t need the bond to read her, not when she looked at me like that.

She couldn’t hide from me. Not in any way.

“This,” I murmured, “is the best view of your eyes.”

I jerked back to myself at the words. Oh. Oh. I don’t know how I flushed harder, given I was a few thrusts away from coming, but I managed—

Jules shifted, holding himself up on one forearm as he reached behind him. His fingers curled around my locked ankles. I gasped as he pulled them along his body, dragging them up from his ass to the small of his back.

My knees bent, my body stretching.

My hips lifted from the ground.

I moaned.

The King of Dawn pulled out of me before pushing back in. All thoughts left my head. I screamed. He sank deep. Deeper. Oh, fuck, this angle. My entire body arched, my eyelids flickering shut as heat rippled through me—

Jules nipped my chin. “Look at me. I need your eyes.”

“Oh.” I licked my lips, but my eyes blinked open. “Okay?”

His grip returned around my wrists, his other hand clawing into the dirt, grounding himself as he fucked me with punishing precision.

I tensed beneath him, my body clenching around his cock, sucking him deeper—

“Fuck,” Jules groaned.

I watched, enraptured, as his orgasm shattered through him. He let it take him, surrendering with ease. Succumbing to his pleasure. Such beautiful bliss. It echoed through the bond, a faint aftershock curling through my senses.

But it didn’t stop him. Jules kept thrusting, kept filling me, fucking me full of his cum.

Marking me.

Claiming me.

The wet slap of our bodies was indecent, obscene. He didn’t pause, even once his eyes cleared, dark as night but wickedly alive. I whimpered, a pathetic, desperate, hot noise. I was closer, closer, closer.

But still not there.

Of course not. You’re broken, Nessa. The thought slithered through my mind, taunting and laughing. I clenched, and not in a good way this time. A hint of pain flared through me with the movement, flaring through where Jules speared me open for him.

Jules didn’t feel it, but he saw it, watching my every move beneath him.

He dropped his lips to mine.

I yelped, but he caught my mouth, swallowing the sound. His tongue overtook mine. Domineering. Possessing. His hips were all but ramming into mine, rocking forward to grind against my clit. Pleasure sparked through my nerves, the heat rising and rising.

Fuck, I was so close. I could see the edge, the fall into wonder. But I couldn’t move, couldn’t get there. So frustratingly, devastatingly close—

Words whispered against my lips. “Agony or ecstasy?”

I didn’t even hesitate. “Ecstasy. Please, stars, make me come—”

He chuckled. “The godstars have nothing to do with this. I’m going to make you come.”

“Yes, please, Jules—ohhh.”

His fangs pierced my neck.

His venom met my bloodstream.

His next thrust shoved me off the cliff.

I buckled. Screaming. Sobbing. Begging. Pleasure tore through me, violent, punishing, divine. I clenched down around him, my cunt a vice grip around his cock.

Jules shuddered, a curse ripping from his throat as another orgasm dragged him under. His second release flooded inside me, hot and thick, his cock jerking with every pulse of pleasure.

I was wrecked.

Ruined.

His .

He swallowed a deep gulp of my blood, forcing another screech from my throat. The Butcher fucked and fed. Fed and fucked. And the explosion in me raged on and on.

When we floated down from the high together, Jules’s hips slowed to a gentle roll, rocking me through the last aftershocks. The world stitched itself back together. Speck by speck. A sky of soft blue and white clouds stretched above us. The sunlight poured over the king, turning him into a gold-haloed masterpiece.

With a sigh, Jules collapsed on top of me. Even as the shocks of pleasure faded, my body twitched and trembled, completely wrung out. I melted under him.

I had thought of myself as a puddle of a woman before.

Now, I truly was one.

Before I complained about the bulk of him, Jules rolled off, dropping onto the grass. His black trousers were pushed down around his thighs, his softening, glistening cock visible to anyone watching. Our pleasure mixed with streaks of my blood.

My blush turned from bliss to mortified horror. Of course, I had bled. Even if I couldn’t feel it now, my body still hated me. But Jules just went slack in the grass, throwing an arm over his face, completely unbothered. Like my blood didn’t matter. Like lying half-naked in the sun didn’t matter.

If I looked like him, I probably wouldn’t care either.

I didn’t turn toward the castle. I didn’t need to know who watched the King of Dawn claim me in the middle of a lawn. In their private garden, yes, but the kings’ apartment was hardly what I’d call private.

I yanked my lace gown over me like a pathetic excuse for a blanket. Something clattered, like metal against metal. Jules’s gilded hellynx daggers clattered against his belt from where it scattered across the red fabric.

I couldn’t resist. I traced the edge of the daemium blade’s hilt, following the sheath of the short, wide blade that ended in a gentle curve. His other blade was curved and longer, made for quick slashes like with Fergus on the road.

“Why is this one a different shape?” I asked, my voice quiet.

Jules dropped his arm from his face and blew a strand of pale hair off his face. “Adé.”

“What?”

He grinned lazily over at me. “Why is Adé a different shape?”

I managed an unimpressed expression, but it didn’t change his smile. “Fine. Why is Adé a different shape?”

He reached out, tracing the blade where my finger had been a moment ago. “The shallow curve and extended belly allows for cuts precise enough to sever skin from flesh.”

I dropped the blade. Stars, that was the Butcher’s skinning knife.

…and I had fucked its owner.

Again.

I lay my hands over my face and groaned.

Jules snorted. “At least wait a couple minutes before regretting me. A lesser man might take it personally.”

I didn’t reply. I couldn’t look at him ever again. Couldn’t look at myself. Why had I done that? The bond had resonated through me like a bell, demanding and demanding since the moment I woke.

But I couldn’t blame it all on the bond.

The moment he asked to paint my eyes, I had wanted him.

A shadow flickered above me, breaking through the gaps between my fingers. Everything in me tightened.

The press of undeniable power.

The weight of five centuries.

The might of the warlord king.

Oh, gods. Of course he was here.

I opened my eyes to a pair of black boots. I trailed my gaze up strong calves, over sculpted thighs, past a thick silver belt glinting in the sunlight. A solid black doublet stretched across his broad shoulders, ever the stature of a warrior.

I met darkening silver eyes. I went still beneath their luminous glow, like a child caught doing something naughty.

But Luc wasn’t angry.

He was hungry.

I was lying naked before him in the sun, sweat-stained and scent-marked, and he wanted to devour me whole. He did devour me whole, luring me deep into his gaze until I was lost in him—

I tore my eyes away, halting the trance, before the bond dragged me into his head—

And met Maire’s hardened expression.

I tensed.

The thrall dipped out of the gilded window frame a second later, but I had seen enough. The cold shock. The righteous anger. The… betrayal?

“This doesn’t look very restful,” Luc said, the deep rumble of his voice cutting through my thoughts of Maire.

“I assure you it was, Lucey.” Jules tugged the pillow out from under me. My ass hit the grass with a splat. “See, look, a pillow.”

Luc arched an unimpressed brow.

“She barely moved a muscle.”

His other brow joined the first.

“I did all the work,” Jules said, sitting up. “It still counts.”

Luc’s expression didn’t change, didn’t flicker from Jules. But his words were for me. “Do you feel rested, bride?”

I glanced between the kings. “What if I say no?”

“Ah, the betrayal,” Jules exclaimed, draping a dramatic hand over his forehead.

Luc ignored him. “Then Julien disobeyed. When you disobey, you’re punished.”

Jules dropped his hand instantly. “Never mind. Tell him you’re exhausted. I wore you out, didn’t I?”

He—what? “You want to be punished?”

“Only by Luc.” A wild gleam filled his gaze. “Though you could give it a try, if you want. Bet you’d have me coming for you in minutes.”

Heat flushed from my cheeks down to my chest. “What? You—no—”

“Well, the offer is always there.” He turned his attention to Luc. “Speaking of coming, who’s in the lead?”

The kings brushed their fingers against their wrists in perfect synchronization. A runespell flared into shadowy existence on their skin. Archive. Extract. Reveal. But the shadows didn’t fade. They spread and rose, becoming shapes in the air above the kings’ arms.

Words in the air.

And numbers underneath them.

The words were blurred, but I knew a tally when I saw one. Columns and rows of corresponding competitions, tracking their wins in an endless game.

Luc examined a specific tally. “We’re tied again.”

My brow creased. “Tied?”

Jules cackled. “Our newest challenge. Take a guess. Luc was winning four-three until about five minutes ago.”

My face instantly heated. No. They couldn’t… he couldn’t…

Were the Imperium tracking my orgasms?

“Don’t be shy.” Jules bopped my chin with his fingers. “Share your answer with your soulbound."

I swallowed. “It’s how many times you’ve each made me… come.”

“Exactly!” Jules grinned up at Luc. “Here to retake your lead?”

Luc let his eyes linger on me. My breath hitched at the heat in his gaze. If he wanted to fuck me, it wouldn’t take much to make me spread my legs. The soulbond was sated for now, but underneath that was an endless hunger for the two vampires to whom I was irrevocably bound.

With the slightest nudge, I’d be desperate and needy all over again.

Wicked, sinful girl.

Luc offered me a hand. “Perhaps later.”

Jules pouted. “Why not now?”

I stared at his palm, silver rings glinting in the light. Luc only waited, knowing I’d obey.

Everyone obeyed.

With a swallow, I placed my hand in his, dainty in comparison, and let him pull me up. I held my dress before me, the pathetic barrier of fabric slightly harder to see through when folded.

Luc’s lips twitched. I probably wasn’t very successful at hiding anything.

Jules groaned at my back, at the sight of my entire ass in his face.

Or maybe it was his cum dripping down my thighs.

Then Luc spoke, this time directly to me. “Sabas found your mother.”